


Ashland Hills

by London_Halcyon



Category: Murdered: Soul Suspect
Genre: Acceptance, Angst, Death, Gen, Ghosts, Murder, Murder Mystery, Paranormal, Post-Canon, Resolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-11 01:00:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20144941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/London_Halcyon/pseuds/London_Halcyon
Summary: Joy returns to Ashland Hills Cemetery, accompanied by a new ghost named Angel, to discover that she's not the only Bell Killer victim that remains behind.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an excerpt from a much larger novel that I'm working on, featuring Joy and Angel as the protagonists. Since I have to rewrite the entire beginning of the story, it will be a while before I post it, so I thought I would go ahead and post this part instead. With that in mind, I wrote this part a while ago, so it may face changes by the final product.

Sophia Baker shouldn't have been the last person Joy had expected to see in Ashland Hills considering that she had once been a person that Joy had hoped to see at Ashland Hills. Only, after  _ that _ night, Joy had forgotten about her. Or blocked out the memories of her would be the better expression. In her own defense, Joy hadn't actually spoken to Sophia, and really her only memories of the ghost involved watching her run off with Ronan stumbling after her heels and hearing shrill, horror movie quality screams in the distance minutes later. She had assumed that whatever had happened had been the end of it, or at least that Ronan had had the good conscience to return to set things straight before he left Dusk. But Sophia was still a ghost, so clearly nothing had been set straight, and now Joy was the only one that could do anything about it. 

_ Goddammit, Ronan. _

“Whatever you do, don't let her scream,” she warned Angel. The last thing Joy wanted was to attract demons, and a medium’s scream, even a dead medium’s scream, would be unbearably painful to any nearby ghosts. 

Angel gave her a look that suggested she was crazy, but Joy didn't give her time to say anything before she took off down the cobblestone path in the direction Sophia had teleported. A good two hundred feet in front of her, a whitish-blue form turned fuzzy with sunlight flickered into view on top the first in a series of moss-covered crypts and proceeded to hop from one roof to the next. Just as Joy sprinted to the first crypt, however, Sophia flashed away again. 

Joy looked around. Trees and graves to her right, crypts and a wall in front of her, and the continuation of the path and more trees and graves to her left. No humans, no ghosts, no Sophia, and no obvious direction to go. Right, left, back, or up?

Angel abruptly materialized next to a life-sized grave marker in the shape of, well, an angel. “Gotcha!” she cried triumphantly. A blue blur shot out from behind the statue, flickered, and vanished, but not before Joy could make out the tangled braid flying behind her. 

“Impressive,” Angel noted good-naturedly. “I’m guessing she's been here a while?”

“She's had months to figure this place out.” Joy huffed in frustration as she scanned the trees in vain. “Crap! Now where’d she go?”

Angel was undeterred. “She'll stick to the path. This place is crawling with demons, so she’ll stay where there's more likely to be living people. And every ghost knows it's better to hide than run. She won't go far. C’mon.”

Left it was then. They took off down the path, the rubber soles of their shoes thudding softly on the stone beneath their feet. Sophia maintained a good distance in front of them, but she never left their view for long. A flicker in the trees, on the roof of a gazebo, on a wall, behind a gravestone always told them they were heading the right way. Whenever there was a long period of nothing, they would stop, and Angel would flush Sophia from the shadows in which she hid to continue the chase. 

Then something changed, and rather than return to the path, the figure continued to flicker deeper into the trees. “You said she would stick to the path!” Joy gasped. 

Angel spread her palms. “So I was wrong.” Not allowing herself to hesitate, Joy charged into the trees after the fleeing ghost. “Joy, wait!” Angel called after her. “You don't know where you're going!”

“I’m not leaving her behind!” Joy shouted back. 

The light quickly dimmed between the closely-spaced tree trunks, sending Joy into near blindness. The underbrush was thick, with branches and bushes catching on her clothes and hair and scraping her skin, and the ground was slick with mud, slush, and dead leaves that sent her feet planing dangerously over it as she ran. But she barely noticed anything except what was in front of her. She couldn't let that ghost get away. 

The slope of the ground became steeper, and her feet began sliding more. A hill. Glancing up, she could just barely make out a large, ancient, wooden building through the branches at the top of the hill. She blinked. All she saw were trees and sky. She blinked again. The building was back, but this time it was clearly bordered by a soft blue glow. A ghost building. The quarantine house. And a flash of a similarly colored figure indicated that Sophia was heading directly towards it. 

No, no, no. That was one of the many places on Joy’s list of where not to go. She was done with haunted houses for this lifetime. But she couldn't lose Sophia. 

“Ange, don't—” she began to call over her shoulder, but the rest of her words were lost in a panicked yelp as her legs slid out from beneath her. She was weightless for half a second before she hit the semi-solid ground and tumbled over backwards. Her fingers clawed uselessly for purchase in the mud, and she half slipped, half rolled down the hill, at one point landing on her right wrist as she desperately tried to stop her unwilling descent. The stop finally came when her back crashed into a tree trunk, sending her gasping for breath that would not come and crying out in pain that would not let itself be heard. 

“Joy!” Angel flashed into being beside her. “Are you alright? Can you move?”

Joy coughed as she fought to pull air into her lungs. “Fine,” she squeaked out weakly before managing to inhale. “I’m fine. Don't let her get to the quarantine house.” When Angel showed no sign of moving, she shouted hoarsely, “Go!” and the ghost took off. 

In her absence, Joy let out a moan. Her back and hips hurt as if someone had hit her with a metal baseball bat, stinging cuts burned on the exposed parts of her fingers and arms, and her lungs had shrunk to the point that she could barely breathe. Moving to push herself up into a sitting position, she hissed through her teeth as pain shot through her right wrist, and tears involuntarily pricked her eyes. Mud coated her from head to toe, and she could feel leaves and twigs in her hair when she touched her head. Her mom was going to kill her when she got home. 

Using a combination of the evil tree and only her left arm for support, Joy hauled herself to her feet, grateful to find that she could still walk, and attempted to climb the hill again with a much larger degree of care. Thankfully, she didn't have to go far. She found Angel about halfway up on a level section of ground where an old, possibly human-made trail had been worn into the hill—and the ghost was on top of Sophia. 

The cemetery ghost had been knocked flat on her back and was thrashing in her position on the ground, but Angel held her down. Joy's ghost gripped Sophia’s upper arms in her hands, pinning them down, and she had used her knees to force the trapped girl's legs apart to pin them down as well. Angel's glasses had fallen off her face in the struggle. 

Sophia opened her mouth wide with an audibly drawn breath, and Angel fell onto her chest as she clamped both hands over the other girl’s mouth. “Oh, no you don't!” she exclaimed. Sophia continued to thrash, but despite being taller than Angel, she lacked her capturer’s mass, so it was safe to say that she wasn't going anywhere. For now. “Hey, take it easy!” Angel insisted. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk. Relax.  _ Relax. _ Stop struggling!” Sophia didn't stop struggling, but Joy wouldn't have either in her position. Angel reached back with one hand and grabbed Sophia’s wrist; Sophia froze, and both ghosts’ eyes glazed over. “I’m a friend, see? A friend. I won't hurt you. I just want to talk. I promise I’ll let you go after we talk.” 

Angel let go of her wrist, and Sophia’s body remained unmoving. “Alright,” Angel said in soft relief. “I’m going to let you sit up now, but when I take my hand off your mouth, you cannot scream. You scream and you endanger both of us, understand? You can't scream.” Slowly, Sophia nodded. Keeping one hand firmly on her arm, Angel climbed off of Sophia, and the latter scrambled into a sitting position. While Sophia warily watched Angel with wide eyes, she did as she was told and didn't scream. 

Angel grabbed her glasses off the ground with her free hand and slid them back on, blushing as she did so. “I’m so sorry,” she told her captive. “Really, really sorry. I didn't know how else to stop you. And, honestly, I’m not the one that wants to talk.” She looked over at Joy, bringing Sophia's gaze with her, and Sophia's fearful eyes narrowed in distrust. 

Joy held her left hand out placatingly, keeping the other tucked against her ribs, and lowered herself to her knees while still a few yards away. “Hi, Sophia,” she said gently. “I’m Joy. I know you don't know me, but…” But I know you? No, that sounded way too creepy. “But I’m here to help you. My mom works for the police—as a psychic profiler. She worked your case. She tried so hard to find you, but you never showed yourself.”

Sophia’s distrustful expression didn't change, and Joy thought she knew why. 

“But you do recognize me, don't you?” Joy asked with tone still soft. “You showed yourself to me, because of who I was with that time. Am I right?”

Sophia's eyes widened fearfully again, yet while she opened her mouth, she didn't scream. Her lips moved, but she didn't speak. What came out was not words but a strangled, gurgling sound that sent goosebumps running down Joy's arms and made Angel’s face slacken. 

_ At least tell me you found something.  _

_ Yeah. The Bell Killer drowned the girl in the lake and let her body float downriver.  _

Sophia had been drowned. There was water in her lungs. 

“That's alright,” Joy said, struggling to keep her voice calm and steady. “You don't have to speak. We know it was the Bell Killer that did this to you, and it's because of you that we know. Whatever you showed Ronan that night—about your death and the contract—helped solve the case. The Bell Killer is gone now, for good, and it's thanks in part to you.”

Sophia's expression became urgent, and she hurriedly gestured at the arm Angel was holding. Joy didn't miss Angel steel herself as she readjusted her grip, and then both ghosts’ eyes became distant again. Sophia's face gave away nothing, but it was Angel's that told the story. First her eyes widened, and then they dropped to the ground repeatedly as she tried not to look away from something. “Oh my God,” she breathed, and then her entire body flinched. Her fingers dug into the ground, and finally she looked away and moved her hand back into its original position on Sophia's arm. “I’m sorry, I…I can't watch anymore,” she said faintly. “That's one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever seen.”

“Sadistic?” Joy offered grimly. 

“There's no other word for it. He…he didn't just drown her; it was so…ritualistic.”

_ Believe me, I know,  _ Joy thought, and her stomach churned with it. She took a steadying breath before addressing Sophia again. “He didn't mean it. He was possessed; he didn't have any control. He never knew what he was doing, and when he found out that he had been the one that had been forced to kill you, it broke him. He’s sorry. He’s so sorry, Sophia, and he wishes he could undo everything. But he did make sure this will never happen to anyone else ever again.”

Sophia's eyes narrowed, and she gestured at her arm again. Angel began to readjust her grip, but paused with a shake of her head. “You don't need to show me again. I saw enough.”

“Sophia,” Joy said, feeling like she was losing the ghost’s attention, “there's no reason for you to stay here anymore. We want to help you. What can we do to help you move on?”

Sophia didn't seem to hear her; she gestured at her arm again, prompting another head shake from Angel. “You heard her,” Angel told her. “Your killer’s gone.”

Joy tried again. “Do you have any family or anyone you want to see? Parents maybe?”

Same result: a gesture at the arm. “That won't change anything,” Angel said patiently. “Here.” She pulled Sophia's hand to her own arm, “Family? Do you remember any family?” and when she let go after a few beats, Sophia's expression was pained. Another gesture to her arm, this time halfhearted. “Sophia,” Angel told her gently, “you're dead.”

There was a pause, although in what, Joy wasn't exactly sure. Maybe in everything. Sophia sat frozen on the ground with parted lips and round eyes, and her uneven breathing was audible. Joy braced in herself in preparation of moving if the ghost decided to try to run or scream. But it was Angel that moved first. Joy's companion unexpectedly launched herself at Sophia and wrapped her arms around her in a surprise embrace. At first Sophia gasped and writhed and beat her fists on Angel's back, but then she went limp, slumping forward so that her face was buried Angel's shoulder. Her own shoulders trembled violently. It took Joy a minute to realize she was sobbing. 

Angel gently rubbed the girl's back. “I know,” she soothed. “More than anything, I know.” She closed her eyes, her own mix of painful emotions engraved in her features. 

Joy felt like she was watching something she would never fully understand. Ghosts were destined to be alone, isolated in their own minds and self-centered worlds and kept apart by fear, conceit, and other monsters. Yet humans craved contact and companionship, a need that, if Angel was any indication, never went away after death. It was like ghosts were their own sources of isolation and torture. To watch two ghosts embrace—to watch them share an understanding of pain and death and grief…She would never be able to describe it to anyone. 

It occurred to her that she must have appeared the same to Angel when she was with Olivia the day before. Had that only been yesterday? Some weekend this had turned out to be. 

Sophia's sobs grew louder, sounding strangely strangled with her flooded lungs. “Shh,” Angel gently hushed, but she had opened her eyes and was scanning the trees uneasily. Joy carefully crawled closer to them. She wasn't sure how she could help if something happened, but she offered her presence nevertheless. Angel was so much better at this than her. 

Joy didn't know how long it was before Sophia finally fell silent, but it was safe to say quite a while—about half a year’s worth of pent up grief could have that effect on a person. When the girl pulled back, however, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, there was clarity in her face that hadn't been there before. Angel kept one arm around the girl's shoulders, but it appeared to be more of a gesture of comfort than confinement. 

“Is there anything I can do?” Joy asked. 

Looking defeated, Sophia spread her hands tiredly, pointed first at Joy and then at herself, and spread her hands again.  _ Why do you want to help me? _

That was a very good question. Joy didn't normally spend her Sundays chasing ghosts, but upon seeing another Bell Killer victim… “Nobody deserves to be left behind,” she murmured. 

Something flashed behind Angel's eyes—something Joy wasn't ready to acknowledge, but the moment was saved from lingering when Sophia meekly offered her arm to Angel. Angel accepted it warily, but the horror never returned to her face; instead understanding took its place. “Those are your parents?” Angel asked. Sophia nodded. “Do you want to see them?” Another nod, albeit hesitantly. 

Joy got the sense things weren't that simple. Why hadn't she gone to see them before now? “Sophia, are either of your parents like you? Like me?”

Sophia nodded, and Angel translated the memories shown to her with a hint of surprise. “Her mother is a medium.”

Oh, there was most definitely a problem here somewhere. “Then you don't need me for that.” A pained expression crossed Sophia's features, and she covered her face with her arm as if in chagrin. There it was. “But you don't want them to see you, do you?” Joy guessed, more than understanding the feeling. She was still trying to figure out how to get through an arrival at home while filthy and bruised—dead and drowned was another story. If she was in Sophia's place, she would never be able to face her mom’s reaction, nor would she ever want to put her mom through the torture of seeing her in such a way. 

Sophia nodded, not removing her arm from her face. Angel rubbed her shoulder. “That's no problem. We've worked with that before. There's an easy fix.”

“Uh, we have? There is?” Joy echoed. 

“Yeah. With me, remember?” Angel told Joy before readdressing Sophia. “After I died, I couldn't bear to talk to my family, so Joy helped me write a letter to give to them.” Only they had never gotten the chance to actually give the letter to them. Sophia removed her arm from her face, looking tentatively hopeful. “You want to do that?” A nod. 

“Okay,” Joy said slowly, “we can try to work something out.”  _ Dear God, please let her parents still be alive. _ “I, uh…I’m just not sure how…accurately I can write what you want to say.”

Neither ghost appeared deterred, and Angel, quite unconcerned, came up with a suggestion. “What about a ouija board?”

“Ange, that's brilliant.” That only left finding a way to write the letter, and Joy didn't have a paper or pencil on her. But she did know someone that probably did. “Stay with Sophia. I’ll be right back.”

* * * *

Joy returned fewer than ten minutes later to find the two ghosts in conversation. “You were part of your school’s photography club?” Angel was saying. Sophia nodded, appearing much more at ease in her position at Angel's side. “Wow, those are awesome. I love photography, although writing is my choice form of expression.”

Joy kneeled beside them again with notepad and pen in hand. The three of them might as well as been at a picnic. A picnic of the dead. 

Taking a stick, she roughly scratched twenty-six letters and ten digits into the dirt—her makeshift ouija board. “Have you thought about what you want to say?” she asked Sophia when she was done. 

Sophia gave another nod, and with her pointing at the letters and Joy writing them down, they began the message. It took time and tears, but they managed to progress towards accomplishment. There were moments of frustrating miscommunication as Sophia tried to explain something she wanted changed, and there were moments when they had to pause as she tried not to cry. About halfway through, Angel lowered her head to stare intently at the ground and did not lift it again until they were finished. Joy did a better job of hiding her emotions—of not thinking about what she would say to her mom if she was in Sophia's place, but she still felt emotionally drained by the time she'd read the final product aloud for Sophia's nod of approval. 

Angel's breathing changed as Sophia showed her another image. “You think you can move on now?”

This took Joy by surprise as well. “Now? Don't you want to wait till we deliver the letter?”

Clearly determined, Sophia shook her head and then promptly gave Angel a hug. Angel firmly returned it, murmuring, “I hope you find peace.” When they pulled back, she added, “If you see my family, tell them butterfly for me.”

Sophia squeezed her hand in confirmation. Turning to Joy, she placed her palms together as if in prayer and mouthed,  _ Thank you. _

“Well, uh, good luck,” Joy said awkwardly. “And, uh, no offense, but I hope I don't see you again anytime soon.”

For the first time, Sophia actually smiled. Standing up, she turned her gaze to the sky and stared hopefully at something Joy couldn't see. Her form flashed blindingly, forcing Joy to close her eyes, and when she opened them again, Sophia was gone. Silence followed. 

Joy's entire body ached, and her wrist hurt even worse now that she had had to write with it. What the hell had just happened? She put her hand to her mouth as everything began to catch up with her. A Bell Killer victim. They had just helped the ghost of a Bell Killer victim. Would this entire nightmare never go away? Nausea rose in her throat. 

“Wow, that was something,” Angel breathed, breaking the silence. When Joy didn't respond, she said concernedly, “Don't tell me you're feeling sick again?” Joy didn't tell her, and Angel let out a breath. “Hey, look on the bright side. You're already doing better than yesterday.” Joy took a deep breath. The ghost was right of course, and it had become obvious in these past two days that things could've been a lot worse. Angel laughed softly. “Oh, you're such a mess.”

“I know,” Joy sighed, and she relaxed a fraction. Then she got a good look at the ghost in front of her. Angel looked exhausted, yet she was still seeking to take care of Joy, another favor that was in need of return. “I never asked you how you've been doing. With all of this.”

“How I’ve been doing?” The question had taken Angel off guard, so there was a pause before she finally said with a shrug, “I’ve been fine. I think…I think I’ve just been feeling things more lately, you know?”

“Yeah,” Joy agreed. 

“Now, c’mon, let’s see if we can get you home without falling down a hill this time.”


	2. Chapter 2

As Joy and Angel walked along the cobblestone path back towards the entrance, they found Rex lounging on one of the benches that lined it with phone in hand. He looked up from the device expectantly when Joy approached him. “Thanks for waiting,” she told him. She held out his notepad and pen while attempting not to appear sheepish. “Sorry, I, uh, got a little mud on it.”

He gave her an evaluating glance. “You got a little mud everywhere. What were you doing in there?”

Still holding out the notepad, she snarked, “Do you want this back or should I continue to be your bookstand?”

He stared at the notepad but didn't take it. She was holding it in her left hand while her right casually hung at her side as if it didn't really hurt. “You're not left handed,” he noted, finally accepting the pad after a long series of beats. 

“You don't know which hand I use.” Who notices details like that?

“Are you saying you are left handed?”

“Well, no, but—Hey!” With unexpected speed, he abruptly snatched her right wrist, sending pain spiking through it and causing tears to involuntarily spring to her eyes. She bared her teeth, but her voice came out as a whimper. “Ow, ow, ow, ow! Let go! Let go!” He let go, and she cradled her wrist against her chest. 

“That looks broken.”

Alarm fluttered in her chest. “It's not broken!” she protested. “It's just a sprain, right?”

He held out his hand. She hesitated in returning her wrist to him, but he accepted it with surprising gentleness. After carefully working off her glove, he examined the joint with minimal discomfort on her part. Funny, the last time she had been in this position had been when she had been sitting on the back of an ambulance after…No, she would not think about this now. Rex interrupted her thoughts anyway as he released her. “You may be right. But explain to me how you managed to sprain your wrist in a cemetery.”

“You remember Sophia Baker?”

“How would you know about Sophia Baker?” he said sharply. 

“Uh, Bell Killer case? You know Ronan O’Connor? Your brother-in-law? We talked about this.”

Rex grimaced. “Right, right, I remember. Must've slipped my mind.” Probably more like he didn't want to remember either. 

“Yeah, well, she’s still here. Or she was until about five minutes ago.” Joy pulled several pieces of paper from the notepad out of her pocket. “This is a letter from her to her parents. Think you can get me an address?”

It took him a moment to comprehend this. “Hypothetically, that would be possible,” he said slowly. 

She put the letter away again. “She'll appreciate it.”

He shook his head. “For God’s sake, Joy.”

“What’d I do now?” He shook his head again, and she grinned at him. “Would you believe that I’ve been told I’m unbelievable?”

He laughed. “That's one word for it. Because you are the only person I can think of that can show up a complete wreck, spout off the most insane things, and attempt to play it off as normal.”

_ Clearly you haven't been to an insane asylum recently. _ “What can I say? I’m a talented person.”

“I take it back. I forgot about every delusional psychopath I’ve ever met. But I’ll admit that the occult is a new one.”

_ Delusional psychopath? _ She was insulted, but sensing that the jab was intentional, only wrinkled her nose to show it. “Glad I can make things interesting for you.”

His eyes confirmed his humor. “That's another word for it.”

She rolled her eyes, albeit with a touch of good nature. “Believe me, it's not my idea of fun to spend half my Sunday in a cemetery.”

Rolling his shoulders, he stretched as he stood up from the bench. “Agreed.”

She winced. “Sorry.”

“Don't be. Any Bell Killer victim is part of my case, and with everything, that makes them part of my responsibility.” Is that what Joy was to him then? Did he consider her to be his responsibility? “Do you want me to deliver the letter for you?”

It was a tempting offer, but while speaking of responsibility, she had made a promise that she was certain she would go to hell for if she didn't personally ensure that it was kept. Not that she didn't trust Rex, but the final wishes of the dead were never to be taken lightly, which is another reason she preferred to avoid ghosts. “No, I think I’ll get the mud off it first. And make it actually legible. I’m not sure I can read my own handwriting.”

After giving her an appraising look, he nodded. “I’ll get you that address. Hypothetically. Because in reality that would be an invasion of privacy and a violation of the law. Which of course, after the long talk we had earlier, neither of us would dare be guilty of.”

“Of course not,” she agreed, matching his thinly veiled sarcasm. 

That was another problem with being able to see the truth; the law didn't always see it the same way. Just because something was right didn't mean that it was legal, and the innocents were usually the people that faced punishment because of this. This also meant that those that dealt in the occult often came up with their own rules of morality and justice—rules that were more twisted, hypocritical, and self-serving than not. Having someone that was close to the law that could also see the truth was a miracle in more ways than one. She didn't know what she would do without Rex. 

But she would hold off on telling him that for now.


	3. Chapter 3

Following the visit to the cemetery, Joy failed to get home before her mom did. In fact, they arrived at the door to the building at the same time. It was needless to say that Cassandra was horrified by her appearance, and she clearly didn't believe her explanation of losing a fight with nature. Angel had to convince her that Joy was indeed telling the truth, which, even though Joy understood that her mom had good reason to doubt her word, still irked her greatly. Joy had to tell her what had happened with Sophia of course thanks to their honesty policy, but while her mom was shocked by her actions, she got the sense that she was also proud. Cassandra avoided asking the typical psychiatry questions like, “How did that make you feel?” that she knew Joy hated or even why the girls were in a cemetery in the first place. 

Sometimes Joy felt that her mom was afraid of pushing her away. That or Cassandra knew way more about her adventures than she had thought possible. Or maybe it was both. 

Rex did get her the address of Sophia's parents, so she delivered the letter Monday afternoon. For some reason, she found that she couldn't do what she had done at Angel's house—that is, knock on the door and run away. It didn't feel right. So she knocked on the door, and she waited. A man with a camera in his hand answered it, and at her request, a woman appeared too. The woman had beautiful, long, dark hair. The man dropped the camera on the carpet when Joy told them why she was there. He didn't move to pick it back up. The woman, who had accepted the letter with a shaking hand, begged Joy to come inside, but Joy had nothing more she could tell them. She couldn't bring their daughter back. As she turned to leave, the woman pulled her into a crushing hug, murmuring, “Thank you. Thank you,” over and over again. When they eventually closed the door behind them, both the man and the woman had begun to cry. 

Joy wrapped her arms around herself as she walked back to the bus stop, but she wasn't cold. The previous snow had melted, and there was no more predicted for that week.  _ Thank you. Thank you.  _ The echoing words were gentle and they were painful. They were liberating and they were crushing. The late afternoon air tasted bittersweet. Sophia had moved on to a better place; her parents knew how much she had loved them, and it was all because of Joy and Angel. Joy knew that she should be feeling good about herself, so why did she feel like she wanted to cry?

With an uneven breath, she sat down on a dirty wooden bench that marked the bus stop. No cars grumbled down the road, and the neighborhood behind her was quiet. Angel, beside her as usual, sat down as well. “How did you do it?” she asked the ghost. “How'd you get Sophia to…I don't know…change?”

Angel shrugged. “It wasn't hard. It's not hard. I’ve figured out that the first step in helping any ghost is to remind them of who they are.”

“You mean who they were?”

“Both. That they're still human basically. Not whatever their death forced them to be.”

Joy put her head in her hands.  _ Thank you. Thank you. _ She was a horrible person. She didn't deserve to be thanked, to be hugged, or to be praised. She was selfish—all her actions based on survival, fear, guilt, and redemption, but she had always known that about herself. To be selfish was to survive, and there was no shame in surviving. Until now. 

She hated ghosts. She hated seeing people cry. She hated those that were too weak to take care of themselves. She hated death. She hated that everyone else existed only to leave her behind. And most of all, at that very moment, she hated herself. 

Because the monsters she had always run from had never been the ones she could see. 


End file.
